Chapter 19
CHAPTER
The spider’s legs were able to bend and curl, as if they lacked bones one moment, and the next they were rigid like iron bars. Her eyes glowed red, no pupils, only spheres of crimson.
She was enormous, her hair black and long, hanging like curtains over her naked body. The creature had to bend forward to see us properly.
“Such a tasty treat walking straight into my trap,” she hummed, looking at Malakai. “The prince himself.”
Malakai’s magic flickered and he growled a vicious, feral sound through his teeth. “Ethalyn, she’s draining magical essence through her legs.”
I froze in fear. Never had I seen such a horrifying creature, not at this scale. But If I didn’t act, she’d kill us, starting with Malakai. A shiver went through my body. I swallowed and sparks of embers spread in my hands. Her eyes darted to it, as her head tilted unnaturally.
“Don’t struggle,” she snickered darkly. One of her legs swept around, pushing the fog away to reveal the forest floor; a pile of bones and limbs, red fresh blood drenching the lifeless dirt, and a strange red net covering the trees.
At the base of the tree trunks were eggs, pulsating, and next to them… humans.
It was unclear if they were alive or not, but they weren’t conscious.
“They all struggled and look what it brought them,” she sneered, cocking her head to the other side.
My pulse had raced and my breath quickened, yet I turned my eyes back to the spider creature and Malakai. His magic was barely wrapping around one of her legs anymore, she was absorbing his power.
“Let… Let him go,” I stammered.
“Foolish human,” she tutted, her legs slamming into the ground, surrounding me. “Do you know what he is?”
My flames erupted, licking against one of her legs, making it twitch slightly. “Yes.”
“He might enjoy pretending to be human with you for now, that doesn’t change his true nature,” she snickered. One of her legs wrapped around, him stroking along his back like a caress. I saw his magic trying to reach for of his gun instead of her arms.
Something moved fast in the corner of my eye; one of her legs.
It slammed into my ribs like a battering ram. The world snapped sideways, my breath leaving me in a violent rush as I hit the ground and rolled through the ashen sand, fire scattering from my hands in useless sparks.
By the time I pushed up on shaking arms, coughing, she was already retreating. She crawled backwards into the fog, silent except for the soft, obscene whisper of silk.
“Malakai!” I scrambled to my feet. “Malakai!”
Nothing answered me.
No curse words, no dry, sarcastic remark and no cutting line of magic slicing the air.
Just thick, grey fog swallowing the naked trees one by one.
My pulse began to hammer too fast. “Malakai!” The words ripped louder from my throat as I grew more desperate. I spun in place, trying to listen past the blood roaring in my ears. “Answer me!”
Silence pressed in from all sides.
She had taken him and was probably wrapping him in webs. Paralyzing him, feeding—
No, Gods, no.
I summoned my heat again, flames licking along my fingers, but the fog drank the light, turning it dull and red. “Think,” I muttered. “Think.”
A shape moved to the side of me and I froze, fire flaring higher trying to reveal what the mist obscured.
A figure stepped through; broad shoulders, dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.
“Jaden?” The name came out small, disbelieving.
We had seen illusions, heard voices whisper and seen faces that weren’t there. The forest had been playing tricks on us since we crossed its threshold.
He stopped a few paces away, hands open, empty. His expression was tight, drawn. “It’s me.”
“How do I know that for sure?” I snapped.
His mouth twitched faintly, not a smile. “Can’t really blame you.” He burrowed his foot deeper in the sand and parts of the ground pushed into the air, levitating at his command.
I hesitated, but we hadn’t seen a shapeshifter able to mimic our elemental magic.
“I came after you,” he said, voice rough, lower than usual. “After what happened earlier… I couldn’t just stand still.”
Something in his tone—guilt, maybe—tugged at me. It felt real, human.
I swallowed. “That thing, she took Malakai.”
“What thing?” His gaze slid past me, into the fog. “A demon?”
“A spider-demon,” I chuckled dryly, shivering at the mere thought of her. “We have to go.” I turned, already moving.
His hand caught my arm.
“Malakai’s a demon,” Jaden said, calmly. “He can handle himself.”
I stared at him, eyes narrowing, blood boiling.
The image flashed before my eyes again, Malakai caught in that leg, his magic quickly fading. The web tightening slowly as his breath shortened.
“She weakened him,” I said. My voice shook, and I hated it. “You didn’t see her. That thing—”
“He’s not helpless,” Jaden insisted. “Running blindly in there—”
“Every second we stand here talking, she’s wrapping more silk around him!” The words ripped out of me, heat surging with them. Flames burst higher along my arms, lighting the fog. “You want to help? Then help. If not, get the fuck out of my way.”
Jaden blinked, like I’d struck him physically, but I had no intention of hanging around. I began moving, his boots following right behind me.
Once he was next to me, he nodded once. “Fine. We do it your way.”
We shouted Malakai’s name into the fog, our voices bouncing back warped and hollow. I burned a few trunks, marking our path and Jaden slammed his foot into the ground every now and then, earth magic rippling outward, feeling for hollows, for movement beneath the roots.
Then—
“There!” Jaden pointed.
The fog thinned just enough to reveal a shape ahead. A larger tree, dead and blackened, its bark split and peeling like charred skin. It towered above every other tree we had seen in this forsaken place.
Something hung from its branches.
My heart stopped.
Malakai was suspended several feet off the ground, cocooned in layers of grey web that pinned his arms to his sides and bound his legs together, strings crossing his throat, his chest. His head hung forward, white hair falling into his face.
He struggled with low grunts, barely audible.
The web around him twitched when he moved, as if the silk itself was alive.
“Malakai!” I ran closer.
His head shifted at the sound of my voice. His eyes found me through the strands, sharp still, but dulled around the edges, like a blade worn blunt.
“I hope you’re mad, kitten, because we have a parasite that needs to be burned out of existence,” he panted, with a faint smirk playing at his lips.
Suddenly, he hissed as a red glow appeared around the webs that trapped him. It spread, swirling around the tree and lighting up…
Oh Gods.
There were even more eggs here, she had spread them out across the forest. But these seemed… alive. They weren’t just pulsating, they were moving, like they were about to hatch.
“The demon is using his power to feed her eggs,” Jaden stammered, fear coating his voice.
The branch above Malakai dipped, from sudden weight.
“Oh shit—!” Jaden shouted.
The spider-demon didn’t fall; she descended gracefully, controlled, as silk held her weight. She landed between us and the tree, her legs forming a wide circle, fencing us off from Malakai in an instant.
“He is mine now,” she hissed, voice inhuman.
Her eyes set on me and I jolted in response, taking in her horrifying visage once more. My fire flared on instinct.
Jaden’s foot burrowed into the sand, preparing the ground for an attack as his eyes locked on the creature. He seemed paler but not fear-struck.
Flames roared from my hands and stone spears burst from the earth beneath her as we both tried flanking her with our abilities.
She opened her mouth, but not to scream… She inhaled deeply and my fire bent.
My flames didn’t strike her, they curved, drawn inward like sparks up a chimney, slamming into her abdomen and vanishing. The stone Jaden raised cracked mid-rise, crumbling into dull grey dust that spiraled towards her the same way.
Her skin began to glow, and she shuddered. Not in pain, but in pleasure.
“Such delicious magic,” she sighed raspy.
“Oh, this is bad,” Jaden breathed.
I pulled out my gun and took aim at her, but before I knew it, one of her legs slammed into me and I lost my grip as the gun was sent flying. It landed behind her, at the base of the tree.
Shit.
Another of her legs shot forward and Jaden barely had time to dodge it. I switched targets and took advantage of Jaden keeping the demon occupied. My fire blasted at the webbing around Malakai.
Same result.
My flames thinned, drained of color before they could even blacken the silk. The strands tightened around Malakai, absorbing the heat like thirsty roots drinking rain.
“No, no, no—” I threw myself up a few branches to reach him and grabbed the web with my hands.
It burned me.
Not heat, resistance. The silk constricted like muscle, biting into my palms when I tried to push my hand between it and Malakai.
“Malakai, we need to get you out quickly!”
“I’m trying,” he rasped. His voice was rough, thinner than it should have been. Dark lines of his blood-magic flickered under his skin, then snuffed out like torches doused in a bucket.
Behind me, Jaden grunted.
I turned just in time to see the spider rear back, front legs lifting high before slamming down where he’d been just moments before. The ground exploded; sand and dead roots burst upwards.
He rolled, came up on one knee, and drew the short blade from his belt. I stared, almost stunned in disbelief.
I had never seen a mage use a weapon; they were usually far too proud. The fact that he even had a blade was astonishing.
She went for him again—fast, stabbing. Not caring whether she killed him or merely herded him away from the tree at this point.
“She’s separating us!” I shouted.
“Not helping!” he shot back, ducking another strike. The blade scraped along a leg as he deflected it. She hissed and black ichor trickled down the leg, the first sign of vulnerability.
My gaze snapped to the knife: metal, not magic. I ripped the dagger from my own thigh sheath. The moment I let my fire drop, the air felt wrong, naked. My instincts screamed to bring the heat back, my flames hissing from the betrayal of withdrawing them.
But the spider’s glow dimmed a fraction and she noticed instantly. Her head turned towards me.
I slashed the web.
It didn’t cut through entirely, it resisted like thick and sturdy rope, but the blade bit, fibers snapping with a wet, sticky sound.
“Malakai,” I breathed. “I’ve got you.”
“Watch out,” Malakai said through his teeth, his eyes sliding to something behind me.
The spider shrieked—sharp and furious and when I glanced back, two legs lunged for me.
Jaden thrust his blade into one of her other legs jamming it between joints. The demon-spider staggered from the pain, and the two legs that had been aiming for me curled back towards her.
“Cut faster!” Jaden shouted.
“I’m trying!”
Another thick strand gave way and Malakai dropped an inch, still held by other threads. He sucked in a tight breath, trying to twist, but he was quickly turning paler.
The spider’s abdomen pulsed bright again. She thrust one leg past Jaden, and it speared straight towards my chest.
I didn’t have time to move, but Jaden did.
He jumped after it, blade up, burrowing into the leg and throwing it off course.
Her leg slammed into the trunk beside me and I swallowed hard.
Jaden landed on the ground, now without his blade and as she pulled her leg out of the tree, she swept it against him.
This time she hit, he was thrust backwards, tumbling across the sand, kicking up a dust cloud along the way.
He didn’t cry out, just grunted as he stilled for a few seconds, trying to recover.
“Don’t stop!” he barked, weakly.
I hacked through the last thick strand across Malakai’s torso.
The web above him finally gave in and he fell.
I lunged and barely caught his weight before we both hit the ground.
He was heavier than he looked, breath shallow, skin cold under my hands.
He pushed up to his elbows, reaching for my hand and gripping it firmly as if to make sure I wouldn’t disappear out of his sight again.
My eyes locked onto something next to his knee—my gun.
The spider reared once more, towering above us. She stood between us and any hope for escape, her skin glowing stronger.
We had fed her well.